McManus

WASHINGTON —  A little more than a week ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hold on power appeared to be disintegrating. Rebel mercenaries were advancing on Moscow against little or no resistance. Wealthy Muscovites scrambled for tickets out of the country. A coup d’etat attempt seemed imminent. And then, a perplexing reversal. After denouncing the mutiny as “treason,” Putin agreed to allow its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to take exile in neighboring Belarus. Prigozhin, presumably realizing his mercenaries couldn’t…

WASHINGTON —  Donald Trump is beginning to sound panicky.“WHY WON’T BRAGG DROP THIS CASE?” he wrote on his Truth Social account last week of Manhattan Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg, who is investigating Trump’s alleged payment of hush money to a porn star. “... THIS IS NO LEGAL SYSTEM, THIS IS THE GESTAPO, THIS IS RUSSIA AND CHINA, BUT WORSE.”In a string of social media posts, the former president called Bragg, who is Black, “a degenerate psychopath” and an “animal.”Trump urged his supporters to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION…

WASHINGTON —  In the brief but spectacular collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, we may just have witnessed the best banking crisis ever.It might even have been useful.Nobody got seriously hurt, except bank executives who made bad decisions and shareholders who weren’t paying attention. Those Silicon Valley libertarians who spent years demanding that government get out of the way earned their comeuppance when they begged the Federal Reserve to save them. “Where is Powell? Where is Yellen? Stop this crisis NOW,” tweeted…

WASHINGTON —  History isn’t kind to one-term presidents, at least in the short run.For most of the last 40 years, Jimmy Carter’s presidency has been widely remembered as an epic failure, the cautionary tale of a politician who was soundly rejected by voters when he sought a second term in 1980.Happily for Carter, 98, who entered hospice care last weekend, his reputation has since risen, thanks to his admirable post-presidency and biographies that have reassessed his record more favorably.Carter’s presidency, they argue,…

WASHINGTON —  The television split screen told the story.On one side, Republicans in the House of Representatives labored through the fourth of the 15 ballots they needed during four days of gridlock to choose Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker.On the other side, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell stood beaming with President Biden as they congratulated each other for a bipartisan success: a $1.6-billion deal to replace a crumbling highway bridge across the Ohio River.On one side, partisan dysfunction. On the other, an…

WASHINGTON —  Last year, as congressional elections approached, pundits offered a bold prediction: November would bring a “red wave,” a Republican sweep in the House and Senate.“The bottom is dropping out for Democrats,” a CNN analyst declared confidently.“Democrats, on Defense in Blue States, Brace for a Red Wave in the House,” a New York Times headline warned.Fox News began showing a triumphant on-screen graphic with the words: “Red Wave Rising.”Wrong, of course. When the votes came in, the GOP narrowly took control of…

WASHINGTON —  The 845-page final report of the House Committee on Jan. 6, which finally arrived late Thursday night, is an epic. Like “Moby Dick” or “War and Peace,” it is destined to be admired more than read.That’s a shame; don’t be deterred by the page count. The narrative at the heart of the report — the story of how former President Trump tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election by extralegal means — takes up less than half of the volume. (The rest is mostly footnotes and legal briefs.)By now, though, most…

WASHINGTON —  After weeks of reverses, Russia’s army is still losing ground in the battlefields of Ukraine.President Vladimir Putin’s response, characteristically, has been to escalate on other fronts.Putin expanded the military draft, announcing a call-up of 300,000 reservists and prompting an exodus of Russian men to neighboring countries.On Friday, he formally announced Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian provinces, turning them — at least rhetorically — into Russian territory that he can never negotiate away.Most…

What inspired you to write for young adults? I loved creative writing as a child and teenager but never thought that I could pursue it as a career. I hadn’t thought about writing in years until I decided to buy a book for a cross-country flight and picked up The Hunger Games at the airport bookstore. I devoured that book and was inspired to try writing again. I didn’t know a lot about the Young Adult genre at the time, but I began reading more and was deeply impressed with the depth, diversity, and dynamic nature of YA…